Titus Andronicus: Video Introduction

Thank you to Ayanna Thompson for offering a video introduction for Titus Andronicus.

Ayanna Thompson is Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies (ACMRS) at Arizona State University. She is the author of Shakespeare in the Theatre: Peter Sellars (Arden Bloomsbury, 2018), Teaching Shakespeare with Purpose: A Student-Centred Approach (Arden Bloomsbury, 2016), Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America (Oxford University Press, 2011), and Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage (Routledge, 2008). She wrote the new introduction for the revised Arden3 Othello (Arden, 2016), and is the editor of Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance (Palgrave, 2010) and Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance (Routledge, 2006). She is currently working on a collection of essays for Cambridge University Press on Shakespeare and race, and is collaborating with Curtis Perry on the Arden4 edition of Titus Andronicus. She was the 2018-19 President of the Shakespeare Association of America, and served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Marshall Scholars. She was one of Phi Beta Kappa’s Visiting Scholars for 2017-2018. She has conceived and organized large-scale interdisciplinary conferences like RaceB4Race. And her work is regularly featured in the popular media, including NPR’s “Code Switch” (2019), PBS’s Shakespeare Uncovered (2018), Slate’s “Lend Me Your Ears” (2018), and the Criterion Collection’s DVD release of Orson Welles’s Othello (2017). 

Many thanks to my friend Joey Bianco of Whim Wham for the animated video elements.

Titus Andronicus: Additional Resources

Titus Andronicus by Dan HainsworthHere are some helpful Titus Andronicus resources:

Thanks for Dan Hainsworth for letting us use his Shakespeare icons, as shown above right.

Titus Andronicus: From the Folger Archive

Enjoy these Titus Andronicus images from the Folger Shakespeare Library. Find more here.

Ira Aldridge as Aaron (mid 18th century)
Lavinia (19th century)
The moor and the king [Titus Andronicus] [graphic] / Linley Sambourne.
Tamora orders her sons to carry off Lavinia (Act 2, scene 3; late 18th or 19th century)
Martinus with the corpse of Lord Bassiamus (Act 2, scene 3; 1804)
Titus Andronicus, a set of seven original drawings [graphic] / [Byam Shaw].
Titus Andronicus, a set of seven original drawings [graphic] / [Byam Shaw].
Titus Andronicus, a set of seven original drawings [graphic] / [Byam Shaw].
Titus Andronicus, a set of seven original drawings [graphic] / [Byam Shaw].
Titus Andronicus, a set of seven original drawings [graphic] / [Byam Shaw].
Titus Andronicus, a set of seven original drawings [graphic] / [Byam Shaw].
Titus Andronicus, a set of seven original drawings [graphic] / [Byam Shaw].